


Falling Slowly, Back to Earth

by weshes



Category: The Martian (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Companionable Snark, Competency, Crew as Family, Gen, Humor, Inconvenient Feelings, Post-Rescue, Sassy, Teasing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:20:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28063839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weshes/pseuds/weshes
Summary: “You’re a ray of morbid sunshine,” Chris tells him. “I forgot what a delight you are to have on board.”
Relationships: Chris Beck & Mark Watney, Mark Watney & Ares III Crew
Comments: 44
Kudos: 172
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	Falling Slowly, Back to Earth

**Author's Note:**

  * For [psiten](https://archiveofourown.org/users/psiten/gifts).



> Thank you to K for beta!

Watney's writing a book, because what else is there to do on the Hermes while your doctor fusses over your space pirate scurvy? All his well-meaning shipmates have deprived him of purpose by refusing to let him do any of the things he's so excellent at, like botany and math and problem-solving. Instead they want him to "rest" and "recuperate" and take warm sponge baths, and then burrow down into a pile of blankets like a narcoleptic mole. 

...and where did all those unapproved blankets come from, anyway? Just another mystery of space travel - one he's not allowed to solve, apparently, even as the blankets continue to multiply. He's pretty fond of the brown-and-orange crocheted scarfthing Johanssen forced him to wear over his thin shoulders like a granny shawl, but he's sure not going to tell her that. 

The rest of the crew finds out what he's up to by accident, if Martinez being a huge asshole about it and sending out the pages to the crew's personal accounts counts as an accident. Even worse, they ambush him over coffee (them) and reconstituted juice (him; doctor's annoying orders). 

"I can't believe you hacked into my stuff. That's low, even for you," Watney says. 

"Hack implies you used a secure password for me to get through, and since I guessed disco in about two seconds, it's your fault," Martinez answers. "Shit, Watney, I didn't even know you could write at all till we got those hunt-and-peck love letters from your Martian manure farm. Also, according to this masterful narrative, you rummaged through _some people's_ personal possessions and set them on fire, so you owe me some entertainment." 

"It was survival! You were never going to see those again anyway," Watney says. 

"I don't know about the rest of these losers, but I'll be on the first mission back after we liberate Lewis from Leavenworth," Beck says. "You've turned it into a premiere botany destination. Like those archaeology vacations, but with explosions."

"Most of you didn't have anything worth setting on fire," Watney tells them, thinking of the stuff he'd carefully packed into Beck's tote at the HAB: black and white photos of strangers and farms and cows; the 'so proud of you Chris!' card from his parents that had traveled with him to Mars; and a slender silver bracelet set with flat blue stones that reminded him of shifting ocean waters. 

He wonders sometimes about the objects the crew chose to bring with them, those precious keepsakes to remind them of what awaited them on Earth. Maybe they were sorry they'd brought them in the first place, when they had to leave them behind. 

Lewis rolls her eyes and pushes her tablet toward him with one finger. "Why is it all out of order?"

"Cognitive impairment," Beck says gravely. He taps his own temple. "The technical term is potato brain." 

Watney scrunches his face up into annoyance and points it at Beck like a weapon, though nothing seems to faze Chris at all. He's probably had a lot of recalcitrant patients. Though Mark might be the first with potato brain. "I'm writing the funny parts first." 

"Did those get included in the file?" Vogel makes a show of scrolling through the text. "Maybe botanist humor doesn't translate in the vacuum of space." 

"It's just a draft! Something to pass the time! Jesus, I'm a botanist, not Bill Bryson." Watney looks at each of them in turn, at the slow grin crossing Beck's face, and the soft smile Johanssen's giving him, and his heart does some complicated maneuver in his chest that feels a lot like it lurching back to life. 

"I for one am looking forward to regular updates. Think of it like a mission report," Lewis says. She lifts an eyebrow. "But without the music critique."

"Aw hell no, that's the best part!" Martinez frowns at her, betrayed, and she shrugs with an air of nonchalance that only a person with absolute authority can carry off. 

Johanssen repositions the granny shawl around him as she goes, and Beck refills his juice with a stern nod, and Vogel sends him a file with some apologetic grammatical corrections because he can't help himself, and Lewis...well. Lewis gave him a purpose, which might be the best gift of the ride back thus far. 

~~

Watney's now writing a "mission report" and he has a legion of helpful critics sending him notes. Everyone has plenty of opinions, and most of those opinions suck. Breakfast is starting to become the most painful event of each cycle. 

...that's a lie; the most painful time is when he wakes up during sleep cycle in the infirmary, dry-heaving from a nightmare of withering away hungry and alone in a cold dark HAB. Only Beck knows that, however, and it's not making its way into any reports. There wouldn't be any way to capture that vast, gaping terror, or the way Beck's fingers curled around the nape of his neck, one hand rubbing down his back, make the dark recede.

"Don't you think this is a little...dry?" Johanssen says, wrinking her nose. "It's so...technical." 

"Are you out of your mind? Carbon dioxide production ratios are thrilling," Beck says. He's sorting Watney's supplement distribution like a kid who's way too excited to catalog his baseball cards. "More of that! Maybe with some detailed sensory description." 

"Ugh," Watney says, staring at his reconstituted juice, which he's starting to put into the same never-again category as potatoes and ketchup. 

"You should throw in some sunsets and storms," Vogel offers. "Give a sense of what it's like living out there. It's an experience unique in all of human history." 

Watney nods, distracted. He thinks about all the things he didn't allow himself to imagine while he was on Mars, struck dumb by its vast wild sandy planes, the way it glistened as the sun sloped unobstructed over its surface. How beautiful it was, and how it seemed all the more lonely because of that empty beauty. When his thoughts wandered off during his isolation, it was Earth he missed, its crowds and greenbelts, its traffic, the sounds of arguing and piano practice through apartment walls, even the dogs barking late into the night. 

Beck sits with him in the infirmary and makes him drink water, and listens sympathetically. 

"You know what I missed most?" Watney says. "Mist. You know, the way it hangs over the trees on a foggy day, heavy, like it's coming down from the sky, but can't quite let loose." He sighs; he can almost smell the rain in the sterile ship's air, feel the cool damp on his cheeks. "And I missed the ocean. I missed...so many things. The smell of fresh cut grass. Blue sky, the kind that stretches out so far you can't imagine it ending."

"I can't believe people think you should stick to technical writing," Beck says, soft. Fond, even. He squeezes Mark's hand and then turns back to looking at samples under a microscope. It's right around the time of shift Johanssen used to drop in and huddle up with Beck in the corner to talk about their personal stuff, but that seems to be over now. If it was ever a thing. Mark's not sure he can still recognize what a thing looks like. 

That's on the list of stuff he's missed, too, and while he was on Mars, it was at the top of his Do Not Ponder internal directive. 

The debriefs each morning eventually fade into background noise as Mark gets stronger and begins to assume his normal chores and duties. He still sends out snippets, working his way through the mundane stuff before he talks about the hard things. The explosions. The injuries. The day he was stranded. That one, he writes around for a while, and then he doesn't send it, and then, finally, he does. 

That day he stops by the infirmary and finds Beck sitting on the floor, hands over his face. It spikes Mark's blood pressure for a second. "The hell?" he asks, crouching down on knees that are absolutely never going to be the same as before their extended stay at the Mars Hilton. 

Beck waves him off. "Nothing, it's..." He wipes his face. "The storm. When we left, I...I was the one who called off Lewis. I told her you were dead. I...had to get her into the ship." 

"Should have been dead," Mark says reasonably. "No reason to think I wasn't." He pauses. "Also, hadn't Lewis already given the order to go?"

"Not the point," Beck says, looking at him impatiently. "Stop trying to be rational, I'm going through something here." 

"Sure, okay," Mark says. He sits down beside Chris and adds, "But no, have you met me? Let's play this out. You could have said I might be alive, and then Lewis would have stayed, and dragged me to the HAB, and then we could have starved together, because I'm Mars's greatest botanist but even I can't grow that many potatoes. Or she could have died in the storm. Or you could have bailed out of the MAV and all died heroically on Mars, and I wouldn't be giving you shit about having an emotion on the floor." 

"You're a fucking ray of morbid sunshine," Chris says. "I forgot what a delight you are to have on board." He's still crying, sort of, but he looks a lot less now like he wants to open an airlock and jump out, so that's a win. 

They sit together for a while, Chris wiping his face periodically and Mark suffering through the agonizing reboot of his entire emotional subsystem, which had been mercifully on autopilot while he was occupied with not dying. It's shocking, how easily he'd forced all that down for the duration, but emotions are inconvenient fuckers, and their ambush catches him off guard. 

Fortunately when Lewis shows up to join their pity-and-gratitude party, she brings crackers, and Martinez pipes in some extra-obnoxious Kool and the Gang, and Vogel brings a hanky (seriously, who even has a hanky anymore) and German chocolate, and then they all sit around on the floor eating and waiting for Johanssen to get her ass down there, because why the fuck not, Beck's having a bad day and they're all alive to commiserate. Watney's pretty sure his heart is in working order, because it keeps twisting around painfully in his chest as he looks at this motley band of space rebels who risked everything for him. He's smart and he's strong and he's loved, and that makes him a lucky son of a bitch. 

Even though the ABBA Martinez just put on is making his ears bleed. 

~~

Watney's done writing the book, and it's absolute shit. Page after page of unrelenting and merciless technical detail. It makes the science nerd in Watney beam with pride, but everyone else is struggling for words during the team meeting. 

Except Beck. 

"It's Surviving Mars for Dummies, but without the dummies part," he says, turning his tablet over with grave dignity, like he's about to roll up a flag and play Taps. 

"I don't know, I think it's sort of thrilling. Look what can be accomplished with science and whatnot." Johanssen gives Watney a nod of approval. Considering that it was her ASCII tables he appropriated to start his life-saving conversations, he takes that as high praise. 

"You know what this could use?" Martinez makes a little heart symbol with his hands. "Romance, man. A subplot." 

"I've already told you that the love between a man and his rover is not for public consumption," Watney says primly. 

"Can you still count yourself as the first Martian novelist if what you write is really, really bad?" Beck wonders aloud. 

"That's never stopped a thousand Earth novelists before." Johanssen should know; she has a secret stash of Barbara Cartland novels on her personal drive, all now safely exiled forever to Mars, right where they belong. Watney will never tell, though. What gets read on Mars stays on Mars. Unless it goes in his book. But that's different. He's not _spiteful_ about it. 

They debate the relative merits of Cartland, Gabaldon and Krantz for a while, because this is what they're reduced to after literal years in space, and Watney thinks about all the things he's comfortable sharing with a world that knows everything about him, and all the things he's still keeping back. He's both known and unknown, full of secrets and completely exposed. Schrodinger's Martian. He stifles a snicker, and Martinez smacks him in the arm.

"No fair thinking of jokes you didn't put in the material," Martinez says, eyes narrowed with suspicion. 

"Bold of you to assume he had any jokes in reserve." Lewis's eyes are sparkling. 

"Could you maybe not punch my patient?" Beck sighs at Martinez. "I just finished getting a layer of meat back onto that bone." 

"So many jokes," Watney says, "really, so many, I could-"

"Don't," they all say at once, and then they crack up, and Watney grins at them, because Earth isn't far now, and they're good, they're going to make it, he's going to have a chance to figure out what, exactly, he has left to share. 

~~

Watney's never going to publish his book, apparently, because NASA ruled it outside of the public interest or some bullshit like that, but he has an ace up his sleeve: he converted the best bits of most chapters to bullet lists and stuck them in PowerPoint for his lectures. Now he gets to brag about potato farming AND discuss why it's important to be a hot bodybuilder before you get stranded on Mars. 

"Don't put it like that," Beck says, wincing. He keeps sneaking into Watney's lectures and standing in the back of the room, which is totally disruptive; candidates keep posting selfies with Dr. Handsome to social media and failing Watney's quizzes. 

"The name of my class is not 'think positive and everything will be peachy', it's Plan For The Worst." 

"Your class doesn't even have a name, it's just a lecture series, and they made it required because NASA got so many terrified emails from candidates wanting to know when they were getting the same survival training you got." 

"Semantics." Watney takes another bite of his PB&J and glances over at Beck, who has taken to eating lunch with him on the JSC campus most of the time. "Why do you keep coming to these lectures, anyway?"

"I enjoy folklore. You know, like Paul Bunyan. The tale gets taller with each telling." Beck grins. He pokes at his cafeteria-packed nicoise salad, which seems to be mysteriously potato-free. If there's a conspiracy to keep potatoes out of his vicinity, he's all for it. 

"Excuse you, astronaut tall tales are a cottage industry. That's how men become myths and legends." 

"Holy fuck, I rebuilt a monster," Beck splutters, laughing. "Too many protein shakes."

They grin at each other, because it's been long enough now, and they have distance from the worst of it. 

He's been wanting to ask Beck something for a while, but he wasn't sure how. Maybe because it's none of his business. He thinks sometimes about how every day on the Hermes was one more methodical step to be endured, so he could put his feet on the Earth again and never leave. And he doesn't want to leave - that part he's clear on - but that doesn't explain why he dreams about the way stars shine ice-cold and crystal-clear in space, or of walking over endless dunes, the sand liquid and pale red beneath his feet. 

"They're adjusting the crew rosters for the next mission," he says, putting the second half of his sandwich back in the baggie. 

"I heard about that, yeah." 

"Martinez put his name up. You thinking of going back?" Mark asks. 

Chris turns to look at him, those blue eyes locked right on all those invisible things Mark's been planning to get around to sharing, or maybe not. Depends. "Like Vogel says, I've had enough of space for a lifetime." He pauses, then says, "You?"

"This is my thing, now." Mark gestures at the campus, at the stationary rockets riveted to their platforms. He's one of them, now. Obsolete tech, an object lesson and a piece of history all rolled into one. "Shouldn't press my luck." 

"Same. Connecticut's about as far as I'm willing to journey these days." He leans back on the bench. "You ever been?" 

"To Connecticut?" Mark says, squinting through the horrible realization that he does, in fact, remember how to have a thing, and it is just as awkward and potentially amazing as he remembers. He's not sure he can handle it. Something to think about. At some far future point.

"Lots of mist there. When it's not snowing. Plenty of trees and lakes, too. Full-service." Chris slips his sunglasses on and stands up. "If you want a refresher on all those things you missed." 

Mark looks up at him, with the blue sky stretching out beyond, and smiles. 

~~

Watney's writing a romance novel. It's shit, but it's from the heart, and the best thing about it is, it doesn't take place in space. Against his better judgment, he sends it out to his critics, and then there's a conference call, which he takes sitting on the couch in front of the fire, while it rains buckets outside. 

"A horse ranch? In Connecticut?" Johanssen stares out at him accusingly through the screen. "Isn't that a little on the nose?" 

"Depends on if he's spending ten pages on the manure-shoveling aspects of this venture." Vogel's voice comes in from off camera, and then suddenly his entire face fills the screen from the side. "At least you got some sunsets in there, for which I commend you." 

"Okay, but, like, 'the sun barreled toward the horizon in a deluge of maroon and burnt umber' is not what I think you want to be going for here," Lewis says. "Subtlety, Watney. I realize it's not particularly your comfort area, but -"

"You are all so helpful, really, but I've got to go, byeee," Mark says, and hits 'leave' with a vicious smack of the mouse. 

"I'm sending the file to Martinez," Chris says, smiling at him from his seat at the kitchen counter. It's an evil smile, the kind that's disconcerting and intriguing all at once. "It'll be on the next data dump."

"That is an excellent plan, because he won't be able to sling insults at me in live time for months." Mark takes a sip of his coffee. "I think you're wasted as a compassionate astronaut surgeon. You're obviously an evil scientist."

"Obviously." Chris comes to sit beside him on the couch, and pushes the laptop aside on the coffee table with his toes, so he can put his feet up. "At least he'll be happy about the subplot." 

"There is that," Mark agrees. He leans his shoulder into Chris's, like he did forever ago on the Hermes. Outside the rain is letting up and the mist is settling into the trees, and all the alternate endings for him - the terrors born in the harsh desolation of another world - fade into the grey. 

"Really though, ten pages of manure minutia?" Chris says into the sacred quiet.

"Shhhh, I'm sleeping," Mark says, and makes a mental note to reduce it to five. 

(With footnotes.)


End file.
